Credit Union One Board member appointed to Homeland Security post

By
Tom Watts, The Macomb Daily

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Guadalupe Lara has a calling in life to make sure foster children are reunited with their families or adopted.

Lara, vice chairman of Ferndale-based Credit Union One Board of Directors, can now further influence the well-being of foster children after she was appointed director of knowledge management, senior fellow IPA at the Department of Homeland Security.

“I interviewed; was selected, and now I am very excited,” said Lara, noting IPA is an “inter-departmental person who works collaborate with certain positions in the federal government.”

“It’s a partnership between the Casey Family Foundation and Homeland Security,” she said of the Seattle-based children’s advocacy group. ”They have invested in putting in people who have been hired by Casey Family to work in federal departments.

“The goal is to make sure children in foster care are reunited with their families or adopted.”

Lara said her official title at Homeland Security (Director of Knowledge Management) comes from working with the Casey Family Program of Seattle.

“The goal of the Casey Family Program by 2020 is to eliminate foster care,” Lara said.

“Together it can be done.”The welfare of children will be Lara’s top priority in the new position. “If not reunited then foster children should be adopted by families,” she said. “That’s what Casey Family does.”

For example, Lara said there are “many families that are being detained or deported and not reunited.”

“Children just go into foster care,” she said. “I am policed in the Department of Policy (and) will work for ways on how we can address the issue. Children do not belong in foster care.”

Lara said she will do all she can in her new position. “I am also looking into sex trafficking of unaccompanied minors,” she said. “The plan for those young people is to reunite them with their families and not to be put into sex slavery.”

It is the first time Homeland Security has branched out into this appointed position.

“Homeland Security is concerned,” she said. “We are very excited to work with them. It is a very exciting program. These are big issues and it takes big programs.”

Federal officials said creating the position for Lara will lead to better outcomes for children and families touched by the immigration and child welfare systems.

Lara, known as ‘Lupe’ to her colleagues, has been on the Credit Union One Board since 1992, and has spent most of her working career advocating for children and families in a variety of leadership positions.

“It is a great honor for our organization to have a director take on a role that can influence and help solve one of our toughest challenges,” said Gary Moody, president of Credit Union One, which has been in Ferndale for 70 years.

“As a member of the Board of Directors Lupe has been at the forefront of assuring the values of fairness, respect and dignity apply to all members in all circumstances.”